Several decades ago, whales were abundant in Antarctica. They would flock to the ice continent during the Austral Summer to take advantage of the blooming phytoplankton. However, this enticed many countries - Japan in particular - to send expeditions to the continent to hunt these whales. They said it was for scientific research, but the whale meat eventually ended up in stores and restaurants, where it was a delicacy. Whales were mined rather than hunted. Whaling became big business and the future of the world's largest mammal became uncertain. The result was the decimation of virtually all of the world's whale species to the extent that today, decades after large scale commercial whaling stopped, most whale stocks are still a small fraction of their pre-whaling levels.
Now, Japan looks to restoring this industry in the name of science. Around 300 whales are killed each year by Japanese harpoons for "research". Of late, many whaling nations having been pressing for a lift on the International Whaling Ban.
To protest this, Greenpeace activists have been on the lookout for Japanese ships and are actively distracting them in any way they can.
Why is this business so big? How did it all begin? And what can we do to stop it? OTFS finds out...
Antarctic whaling began in 1904 with the building of a whale processing station at Grytviken, South Georgia. Soon, a number of shore-based whaling stations came up. Processing of carcasses was very inefficient in the early days as a whale was stripped of its blubber alongside the factory ship and the remains were left to float away. There are places around Antarctica and sub-Antarctic islands such as South Georgia where there are beaches that are covered with whale bones. In some places the beaches are made of almost nothing else but whale bones.
The next era came in 1925 when the entire operation was shifted to sea. The first "factory ships" had the advantage that they were whaling in International waters; they could hunt mothers, calves or injured whales as there were no applicable laws.
In the 1930s, Whaling fleets from the U.K., the U.S., Argentina, Denmark, Japan, Norway, the Netherlands, Russia, and Germany hunted with explosive harpoons and sent whale populations plummeting.
The prized-catch was the Humpback whale, which swam near land and was easier to catch. However, with the advent of faster ships, the greatest prize soon became the Blue Whale. As the number of Blue Whales began falling, focus shifted to other, less-profitable species. However, the hunting of Blue Whales
never ceased completely. The taking of Fin and Sei whales was banned by an international agreement in the late 1970's when those nations still involved in whaling turned to the much smaller Minkes. -- A "whale graveyard" off the Antarctic coast
Finally, the International Whaling Commission was set up in 1946, but its aim was to "regulate" the "orderly" development of the whaling industry rather than put an end to it. It however, failed miserably. From 1970 onwards, many countries started seriously considering a plan-of-action to save the remaining populations of whales. However, scientific whaling is a loophole to International agreements, and Japan has been making full use of this. Many people consider that "scientific whaling" is simply a continuation of commercial whaling under a different name.
Whales once numbered 275,000 in the world. Now, there are less than 50,000 of them still alive. Based on catch records corrected for illegal Soviet whaling, a total of more than 200,000 humpback whales were killed from 1904 to 1980. In 1965, the IWC outlawed whaling of Blue Whales in Antarctica. But Greenpeace says that the Soviet Union went on with the act illegally. According to the Australian government, Japan killed more than 6,500 Antarctic minke whales during the 18 years it was conducting “research” on the whales, though there are ample non-lethal
methods for learning the same things.The picture shows a whale that was killed by a Japanese whaling expedition --
Why and how does Japan promote whaling?
Japan has few allies in its whaling position, but manages to secure votes in the International Whaling Commission by the payment of quid-pro-quo financial aid (totaling nearly half a billion U.S. dollars) to developing Caribbean countries including Grenada, Dominica, Antigua and Barbuda, and the Solomon Islands. One of the justifications Japan and other whaling nations cite to justify the hunt is that “whales eat too many fish” and must be controlled as part of marine ecosystem management. This is simply untrue. Many whales don’t eat fish at all; they eat krill. Of the thousands of whales cut open between 1987 and 2005, the overwhelming majority had not a single fish in their stomachs. A total of less than 300 pounds of fish was found in all the whales in all those years of “research”.
What can we do?
Don't eat whale meat. When the buying stops, the killing will too.
Consumers can make a difference. Environmentalist pressure recently caused Nissui, the parent company of Gorton’s Seafood and New Zealand-based Sealord, to withdraw its support for the whaling activities of its corporate cousin, Kyodo Senpaku. Nissui has announced that it will sell its shares in Kyodo, and end its involvement in the whaling business.
Protest. One voice can't do much, but a million can. For starters, you can sign this Daily Telegraph petition. It might be designed for Australians, but anybody can sign up.
“Whatever you do unto the least of my brothers, you do it unto me.”—Matthew 25:40
With inputs from:
In support of Greenpeace
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